Monday, April 4, 2011

Ben Ten cake pops with mini M &M's


I'm having a bit of bloggers block at the moment.

Yup I have been a bad blogger, nothing inspiring cooked around here the last week of so. Well I did make some of my triple chocolate cookies but y'all have seen those done so I didn't take any pictures.

oh and I did make a cake for my nephew but it was a last minute thing the night before and I used a Harry Potter cake box mix that someone had given me.

So I went back through my archives to try and rustle up some photo's to share with you and found these.

OK the reason I never posted these before is not because they were not totally awesome, it's because I took pretty awful photo's which often happens when I am making something for someone else.

These are some Ben Ten Pop's I made last year for the owner and designer of Australian Made kids fashion line Little Miss J and Mister TJ, well for her son really.

I made the pops with chocolate cake and mini M & M's, which I think is perfect for little boys. Just make up your chocolate cake, add enough frosting so it will be moist and holds it's shape remember not sloppy and the add a handful of mini m&m,s.

OK you need to be a little restrained on the M & M's too many and you will have difficulty popping you lollipop stick into the pop.

Here is a picture of the pop's, I shaped them using a small round fondant cutter and pressing the cake pop mixture in and flattening the top. Then I chilled the mixture and went through and popped the lollipop stick into each one to make a hole, this is pretty important with the M & M pops because if you poke into one of the candies there is no getting through you just need to start in another spot. Some times it's easier to scrap the whole pop and reshape it.
(If you look closely you can see where I had to make a second hole as I could not push through the candy)

Chill the pops again and in the meantime melt your chocolate/ candy melts. Take the pops out of the fridge and insert the lollipop sticks by dipping them into the melted chocolate and pushing them into the pre-made holes. Chill them in the fridge again.

One the lollipop sticks are set you can dip the whole pop in the melted chocolate and set standing up in styrofoam.

With these Ben Ten pops I had pre-made rounds of fondant using the same round fondant cutter and cutting the triangle shapes using a pizza cutter wheel, after the chocolate on the pops were dry I attached the fondant rounds with a little melted chocolate and held them a couple of seconds until secure.

Monday, March 28, 2011

In Love with.........Miette the cookbook

Miette: Recipes from San Francisco's Most Charming Pastry Shop

Miette: Recipes from San Francisco's Most Charming Pastry Shop

I am totally in love with the cover of this book.

It looks like the kind of simple but sooo amazing baking that I like, the basics if you will behind all the decorating. Reminds me of some of my other favourite cookbooks that I talked about previously (click here for link)

and of course it doesn't hurt that it's from a renowned patisserie in San Francisco.
I have already pre-ordered my copy and can't wait for it to turn up so I can try out all the recipes.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Orange and Poppy Seed Macarons for MacTweets



The MacTweets challenge #17 for March 2011 was Sugar & Spice and Everything….Fruity… with a requirement to make sure the macarons incorporate both a spice and a fruit, at least one of each.

I have to admit I nearly didn't make this challenge, I have been a bit busy and although I had quite a few great ideas I just wasn't feeling spicy this month.
Then I noticed poppy seeds in the spice section of the supermarket and I was inspired.

Poppy seed macarons filled with an orange curd based buttercream, just the perfect thing for a refreshing afternoon pick me up.
 

I'm sure the rest of the MacTweets crowd will have a great bunch of macarons in the end of month line up, looking forward to seeing what they come up with on this one.

Recipe after the jump.